Sign the Petition to

Bankruptcy protections should never have been removed from any student loans in this nation. There was never any basis for this Congressional action against the citizenry, and that these removals have been allowed to persist, and fester for so many years is strong evidence of the vast corruptive powers that the financial industry has over our elected officials. This is most evident when observing the repeated failure of legislation like S.114 to be passed into law.

We
hope and believe that at long last, the current legislation will be
successfully passed. However, there are 2 points that must be
accommodated if the current legislation is to be meaningful.

1. No Repayment Requirement

It
is wrong to require a severely distressed borrower to find a way to
make payments on their private loans for many more years before being
afforded the same kinds of bankruptcy protections that exist for every
other type of loan. This requirement was not in place pre-2005, and thus
has no rational reason for being in the forthcoming legislation.

There
is a so-called "middle ground" framed into this debate that would
consist of a compromise waiting period, as opposed to a repayment
period, but we do not see any reason to cede further ground relative to
what was taken away in 2005 and before. I hope you will agree .

2. No Exemption for Non-Profit Private Lenders

There
should be no distinction made between for-profit, and non-profit
lending participants for these loans with respect to dischargeability.
To allow non-dischargeability when a non-profit makes, insures, or
otherwise participates in the loan only provides a loophole that can and
will be exploited to maintain non-dischargeability whenever possible.

In
general, we believe it is very clear at this point that removing
bankruptcy protections from both private and federal student loans has
led to predatory lending behavior, has enabled unchecked inflation in
the cost of college, has led to intolerably poor oversight in the case
of federal loans, and caused a plethora of other negative consequences
that have far outweighed any short term financial benefits to the
lending side of the system. The harm this has done to the citizenry has
been incalculable. Therefore, we believe that bankruptcy protections
must be returned to all student loans as quickly as possible. The
current legislation is an important start, however, and so we look
forward to its quick passage.

Signed,

Alan Collinge

This petition closed 2 months ago

How this will help

If you are burdened by predatory, exploitative private student loans, or federal student loans, you must sign this petition and spread it to as many people as you possibly can.